Sir Henry Moody, 1st Baronet

Sir Henry Moody, 1st Baronet (c. 1582 – 23 April 1629) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1625 and 1629.

Ancestry

Sir Henry was the son of Richard Moody (d. 1612), of Whitechurch-cum-Melbourne, Wiltshire, and of Westfields, Lee, Wiltshire,[1] and the grandson of royal footman Edmund Moody.[2][3] Sir Henry's mother was Christiana Barwick, daughter of John Barwick, of Wilcot, Wiltshire.[2]

The Moody family had moved from Worcestershire to Malmesbury, Wiltshire, by the end of the 15th century, where they leased property and pastureland from Malmesbury Abbey.[2] The family came to prominence amongst the landed gentry of Wiltshire by to their acquisition, by royal grant,[3] of several of the Abbey's estates, including Garsdon manor, subsequent to the Dissolution of the Monasteries.[2] By 1544 the Moody family acquired the Whitchurch and Cleverton manors, both near Malmesbury, and extensive acreage elsewhere.[2]

Career

He was knighted at Whitehall on 18 March 1606. From 1618 to 1619, he was Sheriff of Wiltshire. He was created baronet on 11 March 1622. In 1625, he was elected Member of Parliament for Malmesbury. He was re-elected MP for Malmesbury in 1626 and 1628 and sat until 1629 when King Charles decided to rule without parliament for eleven years.[4]

Moody died at Garesdon about a month after the dissolution of parliament, at the age of about 46.[4]

Moody married on 20 January 1606 to Deborah Dunch, daughter of Walter Dunch of Avebury, Wiltshire and his wife Deborah Pilkington, daughter of James Pilkington, Bishop of Durham. She was a Nonconformist and, after Moody's death in 1629, emigrated to Massachusetts in 1636. In 1643 she was granted land in the southwestern part of the Dutch settlement in western Long Island, where she founded Gravensande between December 1654 and May 1659.[4]

Sir Henry Moody, 2nd Baronet

The 1st Baronet's son, also Henry, who was a cavalier during the English Civil War, inherited the baronetcy.[2] He matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, during 1621, and was admitted to Gray's Inn during 1632, and received the degree of DCL during 1642.[1]

G. E. Cokayne incorrectly states that the 2nd baronet emigrated to the USA with his mother Deborah during 1636. In reality, the 2nd baronet fought in the English Civil War, in which he was a signatory of the Scottish National Covenant, for which his estate was sequestrated but later discharged on 23 November 1646.[2]

In 1649, subsequent to the execution of Charles I and the defeat of the royalist cause in the English Civil War, the 2nd baronet sold the estate of Garesdon to Sir Lawrence Washington,[5] and in 1650 he emigrated to Massachusetts, to which his mother, Deborah, Lady Moody, had emigrated in 1636.[1] He moved to New Amsterdam during 1661 and later to Virginia.[1]

The 2nd baronet served in Massachusetts on two embassies to Virginia, for the first of which, according to Hening’s Statutes at Large, he was paid in tobacco, of which he received 11,000 pounds as his payment. He died on the second embassy to Virginia, in September 1661, at the house of Colonel Morritson, whilst indebted to various creditors.[1][2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e The Moody Family Record, by E. Grant Moody of Arizona, Published by the Dr. Thomas Moody Family Association, 1957, p.8
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h "MOODY, Sir Henry, 1st Bt. (c.1582-1629), of Garsdon, Wilts., History of Parliament Online".
  3. ^ a b Baggs, A.P.; Freeman, Jane; Stevenson, Janet H (1991). Crowley, D.A. (ed.). "Victoria County History: Wiltshire: Vol 14, pp89-95: Garsdon". British History Online. University of London. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  4. ^ a b c George Edward Cokayne Complete Baronetage, Volume 1 1900
  5. ^ Wiltshire Notes and Queries, Vol. VII, 1911 - 1913, George Simpson and Co., Devizes, Ltd, 1914, p.5
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